Never before have so many people been displaced by conflict and violence as at the end of 2019. At the same time, there has been a sharp increase in the number of people displaced by disasters, compared with the previous year.

Last year, over 13 million children received no vaccines at all, and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is calling on governments to step up, warning disrupting immunization services amid the COVID-19 pandemic could leave even more of the world’s most marginalized children without access to life-saving vaccines.

Europe is now the epicentre of the escalating Covid_19 pandemic. Homeless people are especially vulnerable to the virus and cannot be “left behind” by public authorities’ responses to the crisis. FEANTSA calls for public authorities at local, regional, national and European level to take seven measures to protect homeless people and public health.

Growth in the region is expected to slow sharply to 2.2% in 2020 under the effects of the current health emergency and then rebound to 6.2% in 2021.